Ding: Realm First! Level 85 Rogue

For those of you who have not been following my escapades on IRC, a few months back I personally decided I was going to attempt the "impossible" and obtain Realm First! Level 85 Rogue. Since I actually managed to achieve this amazing feat two weeks ago, I've had quite a few people ask how I did it and what was going through my head in the process. So here I am, fully rested after several days of recovering from little to no sleep during the launch.

First off I want to put a disclaimer here, doing a Realm First is not for the faint of the heart. It took a lot of hard-work, dedication, and the help of some awesome guildies. To name a few of the people who really helped out and encouraged me during the attempt: PoeticDragon, Noxy, Karadactyl and the rest of my Halcyon buddies. I couldn't have done it without you!

But now let's get back to how it actually worked. Originally when I first started planning, I decided to be sneaky and give myself a little "edge"—I used an early version of our very own personalized search tool to find out what quests I hadn't completed yet. Before long I came up with a large list of quests, and went out and completed particular ones in order to get the list of 25 I wanted. After tweaking the log many times I finally came down to the final 25, and with these I took the list of quests and made a map of all the locations. I ended up mapping my entire route of the quest turn-ins—I even had several guild-mates who volunteered to summon me throughout Northrend to complete the trek quickly. The entire log and travel time for all the quests was close to 50% experience, and I was able to turn them in as a practice run on the beta in about 8 minutes. This naturally gave me an edge against the competition.

While I was preparing this quest log, I was also leveling through the beta realms, testing the new content and figuring out what the fastest way to 85 was. I honestly didn't level all the way to 85 at any point, but I knew if I could just find the best of the two starter zones and get ahead of the pack I would have no trouble getting this done. After two run-throughs of both Mount Hyjal and Vashj'ir I finally settled on one—Hyjal. Vashj'ir was a bit slow to start off and had a lot of gimmicky quests—plus the travel time between quests is a lot longer than any other zone, even when you do have an Vashj'ir Seahorse. Mount Hyjal slowed down towards the end, but with the boost from my quests at the start I would be able to power through it quickly and head to Deepholm as soon as I hit level 82.

Now with everything prepared in-game, December 6th finally came, and I decided I'd have to severely mess with my sleep schedule several days before—which I tried to do to no-avail. A few hours of sleep prior to the launch helped, but sadly (or fortunately) I was one of those crazy people who decided they must have a Collector's Edition. Since I live on the East Coast this was perfectly acceptable for me to pick up instead of doing the Digital Download, so I spent 2 hours outside in the "freezing cold" (I live in Florida so it's not really *that cold*) socializing with my fellow geeks in line for the pickup.

One of the things people have asked me since all this had happened is what I ate during this extended gaming session. Well, I spent the hours prior to picking up the game shopping at a local mega-store, since I knew I couldn't really afford to cook any real meals while leveling. I decided on pre-made stuff (no, I didn't get hot pockets or anything microwavable). After pondering what would be "easiest" for me eat/prepare, I decided on a foot-long sub, some chips, chocolate covered pretzels (sugar to keep me awake!), a jar of dry roasted peanuts, a 12 pack of Mountain Dew: Code Red, and two fruit-punch Gatorades for a change of pace. All this I packed in a cooler full of ice and I was ready to go.

Finally came the hour prior to launch here in the US. I was all set up, my desk space cleared, and everything and everyone where they needed to be. The hour went by at an alarming speed, and finally it was 3:00am and no one in my guild in-game had seen the server message saying Cataclysm was enabled yet. 3:05 came and went... 3:10.... 3:15... finally the message appears! I attempt to login as fast as possible—I had taken off my authenticator on my account just for that day (totally insecure, I don't suggest it!) and I was stuck on connecting. It wasn't until around 3:30am that I was able to login. Yay, happy-face, I turn in the first quest in my chain and I look at my xp bar and it doesn't move. I'm like ok, maybe it's just a bug—let's try the the second one... no xp!

All my hard-work wasted, I decide to drop all the quests and hearth to Stormwind and RUSH to the flight trainer and get my Flight Master's License. I found out later it was a bug that caused me to gain no xp and killing a mob would have fixed it. =/

So next I grabbed Hero's Call: Mount Hyjal! and booked it through all the quests. 81 came rather quickly about half-way through Hyjal, and 82 literally at the very end. During all of Hyjal I was plagued with constant disconnects from my internet, which STRANGELY hadn't been happening all day prior and completely stopped around 9AM (I'm looking at you other Central Florida gamers!). As soon as I had hit level 82 it was about 7 or 8AM, I hearthed to Stormwind and took a very short break.

I came back and noticed that none of the other rogues were 82 yet—I had a second account logged in this entire time to check the opposite faction. So I grabbed Deepholm's intro quest and went into the Maelstrom! Going through Deepholm was an awesome experience, especially since I didn't get to do it on beta. I had no trouble here except one really strange computer crash that occurred while riding the Skybreaker above the zone. I turned down my video settings to minimum and continued questing once I was back in.

Level 83 eventually came around 1PM. I went back to Stormwind and checked for Rogues once again, and now I know I'm still ahead. Uldum comes and goes, no real issues here except there are *way* too many cut-scenes. They all seem unskippable too—I vaguely remember canceling one and being thrown back to before it began, but maybe that's just lack of sleep talking. Towards the end was where it got tough—I was going on my second day with little sleep. A few splashes of cold water and some caffeine was all that was keeping me awake. I hit 84 around 5 or 6PM, once again going back to Stormwind and took another quick break.

Time for Twilight Highlands! After some intro quests that made me run around Stormwind for a bit I took the plane all the way out there and built the portal so I could come and go as I please. Leveling out here was rather fun actually, some highlights I vaguely remember (as everything was a blur by this point) were things like Consumed by Nightmare. At about 65% I decided to check for rogues again, and scarily I find out there was another 84 rogue! At this point I kinda freak out—I wonder if he somehow got ahead of me? Is he close? I chance it and talk to him while flying between points and he says he's only at 50%. Now he could have screwed with me and said he was ahead, or even closer, but it seems he decided not to.

So I decided to go into the final push and not leave until I finish. By now I'm *really* tired, so I wanted to be done with it and sleep my victory away. I'm running out of quests and I'm at 95%. I tell myself just a couple more quests, come on, I can find some! I finally find a few that took me up near The Bastion of Twilight in south-western Twilight Highlands. I'm up there and there are these Twilight Vindicators, which just happen to be paladins (*growls*) and they can chain cast Hammer of Wrath. Now with me being sleep-deprived you can probably see how this didn't end up going over too well. They killed me about 3 times before I gave up on these quests. I decide instead that I'm going to find something relatively easy to kill for xp and and grind it out. I find Enslaved Infernos, fairly easy and quick to kill—as my mind is racing and hoping against all hope that I make it.

Then...VICTORY!

It was 10:02PM on the 7th, the total time was 18 hours and 32 minutes. You can see the chat log of when I hit 85 here. While leveling I had seen the Realm First! Level 85 come and go, and I was the 8th person to hit 85 according to WoWProgress on my realm. With the taste of sweet victory in my mouth I finally went to bed and slept the next few days away, with some light gearing and dungeon crawling spread about in-between.

I'd be happy to field any questions you may have about my attempt, and answer them the best I can—so feel free to ask away!

Comments

Comment by SuperZ

on 2010-12-21T18:17:43-06:00

Grats man!

Comment by Kazeyonoma

on 2010-12-21T18:20:16-06:00

Gratz! I've thought about doing things like this as lately it seems I've become more and more efficient in leveling versus my dreadful 1-60 in pre-bc, and i'm prone to not sleep much anyways, but it seems I wouldn't have been able to compete with the likes of dedicated players like you! grats again!

Comment by Crucifisk

on 2010-12-21T18:20:59-06:00

Good job reaching it that fast:) I didn't really have a chance for a realm first since I couldn't log in for 1 hour and I'm on a high pop server, but reached 85 in 22 hours:)

Grats!

Comment by Mokenuf

on 2010-12-21T18:30:47-06:00

Gratz mon ! I strived for Realm First too but sleep just owned me, So I just went for "Guild First" which I achieved =)

Comment by baddgirll

on 2010-12-21T18:31:22-06:00

Congrats, Rogue was the last class on our server to hit 85..but they were also all horde.. good to know alliance is good on other servers =)

Comment by Fel4

on 2010-12-21T18:32:03-06:00

I love the "Now go outside!" whisper!

Grats :3

Comment by aggression

on 2010-12-21T18:34:11-06:00

Have never tried be realm first. I don't see the point, as no one can see it on you when they meet you, unless they care about FoS achievements.When LK came, I wasnt even trying to be realm first, and got second warrior and dwarf (another warrior and dorf got it 1h earlier iirc).For CT, wasnt even bothered as always, to get realm first. But got guild first by lots of hours, without even trying.

If there ever come another patch, then I can try for realm first, but only if it give anything else than 5 seconds in the light. FoS just sux, nothing to compete about in my world.

Comment by Remonaz

on 2010-12-21T18:54:41-06:00

Congratulations Fewyn :)

While I was reading about your sweet leveling sesssion (and then writing this comment), there were no other comments here yet. Maybe there will be some "no-life", "looooser", "go find a girlfriend" flamers now (or there will be at least one in next couple pages). But never ever ever care about them (even a bit).

Your story was pretty cool and funny, I am really moved about what you wrote here and read it with a smile on my face. And YES i do comprehend such things as a victory (not less then any olympics or any pysical / mental contest). I am 30+ now and my body (or mind) simply doesn't let me anymore for 18 hours and 32 minutes gaming infront of a monitor. My head will ache to death, my eyes will bleed (whatever i eat / drink as fuel), my comprehension would be severely damaged and when i read a quest i would be like "Uhh.. oh whaat?#$" and read it like couple more times :)

I was also up to such challenges 10 years ago. These are REALLY great memories when you grow up. And such eager and passionate gaming is never a problem or obstacle against socialising, or interaction with opposite sex or anything (i'm mentioning these before some pathetic jealous flamer drops here). I'm married now, always had good long relations with nice women before, and i'm a DJ/producer with really a lot of friends (and was always similar to this, for my entire eager and passionate MMO-gaming life for 11 years (since Ultima Online)).

Huge congratulations again, and cheers :)

Comment by Interest

on 2010-12-21T18:59:33-06:00

Gratz.

Comment by Cambo

on 2010-12-21T19:34:50-06:00

Grats Fewyn, it's always nice to know how people go about this.Interesting to see that you suffered some delays, yet still pulled it off.

Comment by Maven01

The only research I did for leveling was just knowing what zone to be in at which level, besides that, I had no idea what I was looking forward to.

I tried the 25 dailies but that stupid XP bug ruined the whole thing. After that, I started in Hyjal and just went about my way. Somehow, I got ahead of the curve and just stayed that way. About a fourth of the way into 84, I had a real life friend come and follow me and just heal me. The damage was just so intense at that point, that if I wasn't blood or had a healer, I wouldn't have made it so quickly.

For the most part, I was actually getting beat by a DK running dungeons, but he started slowing down and I passed him about 50% in 84. He dinged about 30 minutes after me.

(2h frost is insane for leveling)

Comment by Monday

on 2010-12-21T20:07:35-06:00

Congrats Fewyn!

I myself have a question: I skipped most of Deepholme (I just didn't like the beginning too much. It was like a rock themed version of Outland, and imo the atmosphere wasn't nearly as cool) and went stright to Uldum. Now I'm about 83 1/2. Would it be possible to stay until 85, or should I go back and finish Deepholme, then return to Uldum?

Comment by fewyn

on 2010-12-21T20:12:10-06:00

Congrats Fewyn!

I myself have a question: I skipped most of Deepholme (I just didn't like the beginning too much. It was like a rock themed version of Outland, and imo the atmosphere wasn't nearly as cool) and went stright to Uldum. Now I'm about 83 1/2. Would it be possible to stay until 85, or should I go back and finish Deepholme, then return to Uldum?

Well you'll probably have to head back, I know personally I completed most of Uldum (like 85% of it) by the time I hit 84. Each zone besides the two starter zones were designed to give 1 level per zone. So I got 81 and 82 in Hyjal, 83 in Deepholm, 84 in Uldum and dinged 85 in Twilight Highlands.

Comment by Monday

on 2010-12-21T20:22:15-06:00

Alright, ty!

Comment by Interest

on 2010-12-21T20:26:53-06:00

Grats Fewyn, it's always nice to know how people go about this.Interesting to see that you suffered some delays, yet still pulled it off.

Also, you said $%^& in your post. Shouldn't it be censored?

Mods and above don't get censored.

Comment by HoleofArt

on 2010-12-21T21:44:43-06:00

You said "#$%^ed" and it was uncensored.

Now he could have $%^&ed with me and said he was ahead, or even closer, but it seems he decided not to.

Is that even allowed?

And congrats!

Comment by goshadstep2lose

on 2010-12-21T22:58:47-06:00

and by using my leveling guide no doubt!

Comment by raevyncent

on 2010-12-22T00:00:00-06:00

Hey! I'm on your realm, and I remember specifically seeing first rogue! Gratz again man! Tho, I wont be able to play with you, as I cannot fathom being Alliance...ever!

Comment by pre7ender

on 2010-12-22T03:13:05-06:00

Grats Fewyn! The hard work payed out. And thanks for sharing!The first couple of realm firsts on my server were achieved at around 10am on the 7th, I wonder how they did it.. they couldn't have just quested through?

Comment by RyokoLam

on 2010-12-22T03:14:55-06:00

nice story on your journey to this achievement! Sounds awesome, especially when you encountered the paladin lol